Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first two gigabit (Gb) DDR3 devices using 40 nanometer (nm) class process technology.

"We see market adoption to DDR3 picking up steam and are accommodating that with early entry of 2Gb DDR3 using the most efficient DRAM manufacturing technology available today," said Jim Elliott, Vice President, Memory Marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "This will set the pace for a new standard in premium, eco-friendly DRAM solutions offering the most advanced, low power RDIMM for servers anywhere."

Mushkin today announced the third-generation of its flagship solid-state disk lineup, the Europa III. The new series revolves around using a high-performance controller chip made by Samsung. The NAND flash configuration is of the multi-level cell (MLC) type, and in conjunction with the controller, provides high transfer rates.

The first model in this series is the Mushkin esi25607. This 250 GB SSD is of the standard 2.5 inch form-factor, and weighs 80.1 g. It is driven by Samsung S3C29RBB controller, which helps this drive churn out speeds of 220 MB/s (read), 200 MB/s (write). It uses the standard SATA II interface. The drive maintains a low power draw of 0.15W when idling, and 0.25W when active. It has its MTBF rated at one million hours. The drive comes packed in a fancy aluminum case. Details on its pricing and availability are yet to surface.

Strengthening its line up of portable 1.8-inch hard drives for external use, Samsung today announced its 250 Gigabyte (GB) 1.8-inch hard disk drive, the Spinpoint N3U which incorporates a native USB 2.0 controller on its printed circuit board. Most external hard drives require the addition of a bridge circuit board to convert the hard drive's current interface into a USB interface. Samsung's N3U drive, however, uses a native USB interface and as such does not require this bridge board. This optimized design results in a smaller foot print, less power consumption and optimized performance, which is ideal for portable external storage devices. The N3U 1.8-inch drive consumes about 40 percent less power than a normal 2.5-inch hard drive of an equivalent capacity. It has two 125 GB platters for a total of 250 GB data storage capacity. The Spinpoint N3U also comes in 120 GB, 160 GB, and 200 GB capacities, the disk rotation speed is 3600 rpm. The drives are equipped with an 8 MB of cache memory. Initial shipments to OEMs are scheduled from mid-July with a MSRP of $199.00.

Samsung Electronics, the number one worldwide brand for LCD displays, today announced the Samsung XL2370, a new LED monitor featuring cutting-edge technology and a "finger-slim" design. The Samsung XL2370 is Samsung's highest performance display and the first to incorporate LED technology, giving the model a super-slim profile and significant energy-saving benefits.

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer memory, power supplies and flash memory products, including solid-state drives, today announced two new products in its Performance Series SSD family: the P128 and P64 high-performance solid-state drives.

Building on the success of the award-winning P256 SSD, the Corsair P128 delivers the same 220MB/sec read speeds and 200MB/sec write speeds as its higher capacity cousin, at a lower cost. The P64 is one of the best-performing, lower-density SSDs available, with read speeds of up to 220MB/sec and write speeds of up to 120MB/sec. Both drives utilize the same cutting-edge technology as the P256, including a sophisticated Samsung controller IC with 128MB of cache memory and NCQ support to deliver class-leading, stutter-free performance.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Numonyx B.V. today announced they are jointly developing market specifications for Phase Change Memory (PCM) products, a next generation memory technology that will help enable makers of feature-rich handsets and mobile applications, embedded systems* and high-end computing devices to meet the increasing performance and power demands for platforms loaded with content and data. Creating common hardware and software compatibility for PCM products should help simplify designs and shorten development time, enabling manufacturers to quickly transition to high-performance, low-power PCM products from both companies.

Phase change memory produces very fast read and write speeds at lower power than conventional NOR and NAND flash memory, and allows for bit alterability normally seen in RAM.

"Our joint efforts with Numonyx will enable a more secure path for introducing PCM into the mobile environment," said SeiJin Kim, vice president, mobile memory technology planning and enabling, Samsung Electronics. "We anticipate that PCM will eventually be a major addition to our family of memory products, one that will nicely compliment our other mobile memory solutions and ultimately increase our leadership in the industry," he added.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, announced today that it is now sampling a SATA-interface mini-card solid state drive (SSD) with some of its customers, for use in the expanding netbook marketplace. The Samsung SATA mini-card SSD expands the use of SSDs from not only being a primary storage medium, but also as a complementary drive to boost the performance of PCs with dual drive capabilities.

Samsung's new mini-card form factor, with a highly robust interface, makes an already rugged SSD even less susceptible to damage from jarring, jostling and dropping.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has developed the world's first 32 Gigabyte (GB) DDR3 module - for use in server systems. The new module operates at 1.35-volts, in support of the global trend to cut power usage in mass storage computing environments.
"Compared to the 8GB memory modules used in today's servers, our new module packs an eco-sensitive wallop with four times the density at significantly reduced power levels and no increase in the overall footprint," said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "For data centers, it's a powerhouse in energy efficiency and performance," he added.

RADVISION and Samsung Electronics America, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Corporation, today unveiled the VC240, their first product on the market to integrate all the components required for high definition desktop video conferencing into a single unit at an affordable price. The VC240 can operate as a standalone desktop HD video conferencing device and as a 24 inch high resolution monitor.

Hynix Semiconductor, LG Electronics , Samsung Electronics, and Silicon Image, today announced the formation of an industry consortium that promotes Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT) for broad market adoption as an industry standard. As the first-of-its-kind memory specification for dynamic random access memory (DRAM), SPMT will initially target the mobile handset market, enabling a new generation of devices capable of running highly data intensive, media-rich applications while at the same time extending battery life.

Having tried its hand in several PCB designs for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series, Zotac created itself enough room to come up with new SKUs at will. The company is using a recently-designed 10-layer PCB it used for a high-end GeForce GTX 285 accelerator featuring Arctic Cooling Accelero Extreme cooler, to design a new GeForce GTX 260 model (GTX260-896D3) with essentially the same design, except for a change: While the GTX 285 card featured 0.77 ns GDDR3 memory chips made by Hynix, this one uses 1.0 ns chips by Samsung.

The card retains the 6+3 phase power circuitry, the Accelero Extreme cooler, and standard features for the GeForce GTX 260: 216 shader processors, 896 MB of GDDR3 memory across a 448-bit interface, support for 3-way SLI, CUDA and PhysX. It will use reference NVIDIA clock speeds of 574/999 MHz (core/memory). Backed by a 3-year warranty, this card will hit stores in China at a price of 1299 RMB (US $190).

DisplayLink Corp. today celebrated reaching sales of more than one million USB graphics semiconductors. Embedded in more than thirty consumer and business products, DisplayLink chips - the DL-120 and DL-160 - make it possible for people to connect various visual computing devices to displays with an easy USB connection.

"DisplayLink has completely reinvented the way computers talk to displays. Our IC's make it possible to use standard plug and play USB to connect a laptop to one or more displsys, bringing the world a major step closer to the ideal "single world connector" status. Achieving sales of one million chips clearly shows the mainstream reach of our technology with customers and end-users who readily appreciate the simplicity of our approach and the productivity benefits of using multiple displays" said Hamid Farzaneh, president and CEO of DisplayLink.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, announced shipment of its 32-Gigabyte (GB) moviNAND, the highest density embedded memory card utilizing advanced 30-nanometer (nm) class process technology. Use of high-density embedded memory improves the performance of high-end phones and other mobile consumer electronics when processing and storing large amounts of multimedia content such as videos, video games and TV broadcasts.

The 32 GB moviNAND is the first embedded memory card to use 32 Gigabit (Gb) NAND devices produced with 30nm-class process technology. The new Samsung card doubles the density of the previous generation of moviNAND that is now being produced with 16 Gb 40nm-class NAND chips.

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the launch of the Corsair Storage Solutions P256 high-performance 256GB solid-state drive (SSD).

The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 has been designed using cutting-edge technology to deliver the highest performance and compatibility, in a capacity that is big enough to replace conventional storage solutions in a high-performance PC. The P256 uses specially selected Samsung MLC flash memory and a sophisticated Samsung Controller IC, coupled with 128MB of super-fast cache memory and Native Command Queuing (NCQ) support for blistering, stutter-free performance, delivering read speeds of up to 220MB/sec and write speeds of up to 200MB/sec.

Samsung Electronics America, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Corporation, the number one worldwide brand of LCD display products, today announced the release of its 70 Series Monitors: the P2070, P2370 and P2370HD. These slim LCD monitors, with screen depths of 30 mm (1.18 inches) for the P2070 and P2370 and 65.5mm (2.58 inches) for the P2370HD and Touch of Color (ToC) design, are the latest release of Samsung's high performance displays.
"The 70 Series offers our customers a sophisticated-looking LCD monitor with the performance capability of our televisions," said J.H. Kim, President of Samsung Electronics America's Information Technology Division. "The 70 Series is the new standard as more people upgrade their monitors for additional uses, like watching television programs and playing video games."

Silicon giant Samsung is making PRAM a reality next month, after its announcement back in 2006. PRAM, or phase-change random-access memory, uses a technique of phase-transition of chalcogenide glass to store data. The active component can quickly change its form from crystalline, to micro-crystalline (amorphous), when subjected to charge. The cycle takes place so quickly, that it can be used to store and deliver data at speeds up to 30 times higher that NAND or NOR flash memory, and support write-cycles at least 10-times higher than the two.

The best of both NOR and NAND are on offer: the random-access speeds of NOR, and the permanent-storage of NAND. The first line of PRAM chips from Samsung are set for mass-production in June. It will arrive in capacities of 512 MB. On its application front, so far no other companies have announced products that can utilize the new technology, nor has such an announcement come from Samsung, but the company will definitely need a few "launch-vehicles" for PRAM in the very near future.

Samsung Electronics America, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Corporation, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced the N110 and N120 as the newest additions to their mini notebook lineup. The N110 and N120 are both currently available through Samsung.com and online retailers with an MSRP of $469 and $459, respectively.
"Our mini notebooks represent Samsung's desire to offer high quality, mobile focused solutions that create user value with important features such as design, ergonomics and battery life," said J.H. Kim, President of Samsung Electronics America's Information Technology Division. "With the addition of the N110 and N120, we have expanded our lineup with enhanced battery life, multi-media speakers and a larger keyboard and touchpad. These key features will satisfy the needs of users looking for audio video capabilities, while also supporting the road warriors needing extended battery life."

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, today announced that it is ramping up 50-nm class production of DDR3 memory chips this month - the most advanced system memory available. This is in response to increased demand stemming from Intel Corporation's launch of its Intel Xeon processor 5500 series.
Samsung's DDR3 enables OEMs to design servers that use up to 192 gigabytes (GBs) per system (16 GBx12) and provides numerous improvements over its predecessor, DDR2, including at least a 60 percent improvement in power consumption and double the system performance, with speeds up to 1333 Megabits per second (Mbps).

Samsung Electronics Co, a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, today introduced their new 500-Gigabyte (GB) 2.5-inch hard disk drive with a shock operation tolerance of 400G/2ms. The Spinpoint M7 500 GB 2.5-inch hard drive with 250 GB per platter features a rugged base and cover design, offering better data protection for road warriors and other mobile laptop users.
"Our customers have been requesting hard drives with higher density, lower power and greater reliability for their mobile applications," said C.H. Lee, vice president, Storage sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "The Spinpoint M7 answers these needs with a high-speed operating shock specification and extraordinary drive capacity for storing large data files, music, photos and videos."

In a move that signals a firm and ongoing commitment to advanced semiconductor technology leadership, IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Infineon Technologies, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., and STMicroelectronics have defined and are jointly developing a 28-nanometer, high-k metal gate (HKMG), low-power bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process technology.

The low-power, 28nm technology platform can provide power-performance and time-to-market advantages for producers of a broad range of power-sensitive mobile and consumer electronics applications, including the fast-growing mobile Internet device market segment. The favorable leakage characteristics of the HKMG technology result in optimized battery life for the next generation of mobile products.

Samsung Electronics on Thursday said it is boosting security on solid-state drives by bundling data encryption software from Wave Systems' Embassy with drives from 64GB to 256GB.

The drives with encryption software will be available from PC makers, Samsung said in a statement. Coinciding with Samsung's announcement, Dell said it would offer the self-encrypting SSDs with its Latitude line of laptops in the upcoming months.

Full-disk encryption is already available for hard drives, but this is the first time it is available for SSDs, Samsung said. The software automatically encrypts information as data is stored on the SSDs. Additionally, the company claims that SSD performance is not affected by encryption because the drive has no moving parts.

I once posted a news story on how well computer manufacturers are treating the environment according to the Greenpeace organization. Well I'm going to give you a little update on that story today. Last time Nintendo was the worst among worst when talking "green" and this year it is strengthening its position even more. From zero to eleven in being "green" (zero means worst) Nintendo scores the whooping 0. HP, Microsoft, Lenovo and Dell are next to have poor scores when it comes to preserving the world we live in. According to Greenpeace only Apple is "truly kicking the habit", maybe that's because they have an apple as their logo. Philips learned a lesson from last Greenpeace research and the company jumps from 15th to 4th place this year, well done Philips. The two best "green" manufacturers as of March 31st 2009 are Samsung and Nokia.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has just made the initial shipment of the world's first and smallest high-density memory modules based on 2-gigabit (Gb), 50 nanometer (nm)-class DDR3.
Samsung is shipping 18 configurations of its high-density, high-performance DDR3-based modules, which are designed for servers. They include a 16-gigabyte (GB) registered inline memory module (RIMM) and an 8 GB RDIMM (registered dual inline memory module). Last September, a 50 nm-class 2 Gb DDR3 was introduced for PC applications.

In a phone interview with Brian Beard, flash marketing manager for Samsung Semiconductor, CNET have come up with some good news for those of you waiting for the cost of solid-state drives to come down. Solid-state drives are better in almost all ways than current hard drive technology, and they represent the natural step ahead in computing. However there's always something that does not fit well, current solid-state drives are still too expensive to become widely accesible. Mr. Beard says this is about to change in near future. His words exactly:

Flash memory in the last five years has come down 40, 50, 60 percent per year,

Flash on a dollar-per-gigabyte basis will reach price parity, at some point, with hard disk drives in the next few years.

In his talk with CNET, Beard also tries to explain why SSD technology is currently more expensive than hard drive technology. If you are interested, you can read the full interview here.

As NVIDIA partners attempt to cash in on the good sales of GeForce GTX 260, by lining up numerous custom-designed models based on the said GPU, Galaxy has added yet another to its lineup: a GeForce GTX 260 accelerator with twice the amount of memory as its reference design, all 1792 MB of it. Galaxy worked on two areas of this card: cooling and memory. Towards memory, the company chose to use the high-density Samsung K4J10324QD-HJ1A memory chip, that has a capacity of 1 Gb (128 MB). 14 such chips populate the 448-bit GDDR3 memory bus to dole out a total 1792 MB of memory capacity.

Towards cooling, Galaxy used a custom GPU cooler that spans across the length of the card. Its GPU contact block gives out five heatpipes that direct heat to a dense array of alumium fins. Three fans are employed to cool the card. The airflow passively cools the memory, the 4+1 phase VRM area has a heatsink of its own, so does the NVIO2 processor. Expreview put the card through a series of test to bring out its performance increment over the 896 MB GeForce GTX 260. The games World in Conflict and Company of Heroes saw significant increments in average frame-rates.